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Highfalutin Ham

Sara Deseran | Photo: Aya Brackett | July 16, 2012

You could call this pretty dish at the new Central Kitchen a glorified ham plate. Or you could call it a taste of the continuing fancification of the Mission. Either way, it represents the finer-dining ambitions of celebrated Flour + Water chef Thomas McNaughton at his second venture. Thinly sliced housemade ham - made from brined and roasted Devil's Gulch Ranch pork - is part of the $79 tasting menu, served to the tunes of Creedence Clearwater. It's topped with fennel McNaughton forages from the coast. Soon he'll add herbs picked from the restaurant rooftop. Ask him about the goats he wants to raise up there, too. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy," he says. But really, at this point in the neighborhood's jaw-dropping culinary evolution, crazy is relative.